Peds in Car have 30 feet draw distance!

[Julias Caesar]

 

Just want to chime in and say that I Had this issue on my 7600gs I recently upgraded to a 9800gtx+ and it resolved my issue, I am using the current leaked drivers, But I don't think that changed it. I didn't even notice till I was sniping that it fixed it and I could see people in cars while sniping.

 

BTW Try changing your nvidia quality control from performance to quality or high quality, my 9800gtx+ runs better on high quality than performance and it fixes allot of the graphics problems that gta has IE crappy looking ocean etc.

hi Nick,

 

are u sure you got rid of the problem?

You'd be the first of us all.

 

 

Can you really see the peds in their cars from far away (sniper etc?)?

I'd like to be sure we don't misunderstand you. could you do a screenshot from that please? That would be very nice.

 

thx

[Pixelated]

I think this is more or less noticeable on different hardware configs, I first saw it when I was using the video editor though the NPC did reappear when I had the camera in a spot I wanted with them in the view . As far as pedestrians on the street well you can still snipe them. I took a chopper up onto a relatively tall building and was shooting pedestrians and police. You can snipe the cops in their cars.

[Julias Caesar]

yeah but what I wonder is that on the Consoles the peds seem to be visible in the cars from much further away..

[Julias Caesar]

I just received answer from rockstar support, but they cannot help a sh*t:

 

they say I have to drag drawdistance higher, which I have, and as a 2nd reply they say theere's no other setting for that and they appologize.

 

How will we EVER get around this stupid F+ck??

[noVa]

I just received answer from rockstar support, but they cannot help a sh*t:

 

they say I have to drag drawdistance higher, which I have, and as a 2nd reply they say theere's no other setting for that and they appologize.

 

How will we EVER get around this stupid F+ck??

probably won't as it's most likely a limitation of the engine,

 

and if someone can modify it to work it will probably add a bucket load more lag.

[Goatman455]

Any way to fix this?

[Pixelated]

So you guys are talking about the NPC's in the cars only? Not on the streets right? It's more than 30ft in the cars that I'm positive. If you focus on them from say 100ft and they don't show up right away they will fade in. And yes it makes sense that this would be a draw distance limitation. So set your textures to medium or low and then put the rest into draw distance. Although when I tried it even though I still had about 400MB of video memory left the frame rate suffered badly.

[Marsmillo]

Still no response for me from Rockstar support...

[Julias Caesar]

I have draw distance at maximum, but they still appear very late (too near to me)

 

Concerning engine limitation:

I thought on the Xbos and PS3 the problem is not there - so the engine isn't the problem at all.

[qwertz123]

 

probably won't as it's most likely a limitation of the engine,

 

and if someone can modify it to work it will probably add a bucket load more lag.

stop talking out of your ass. the cops in the cars have a higher lod distance so it's a design choice for the pc.

[Marsmillo]

Still didn't get a answer from tech support uk... At the moment I'm downloading the new patch, someone tested it already? Is the bug fixed or not? Or did someone find a setting somewhere?

[kleinert86]

I've also contacted Rockstar about it, still no answer..

 

Guys, write them

If enough people write them (that its pc related and on xbox and ps3 ist fine

and if its taken care of in a patch) Maybe someone will

get an answer.

its [email protected]

[kleinert86]

They answered me today, but all it says is: send us your dxdiag.

Though I wrote them it is Pc related in general, and that I only wanted to know,

if they accept its a general problem and will be working on it, they still think or try

to make me believe its not a general problem..

 

I hope r* is workin on this because in my opinion its a major gameplay issue..

[JohnZS]

The only way I think this would ever be fixed is with a patch! It smacks of being an "engine" thing

John

[kleinert86]

 

The only way I think this would ever be fixed is with a patch! It smacks of being an "engine" thing

John

 

It is. I too hope they're going to patch it.

[The Ballas]

This is kinda annoying i hope they will fix it

[latearrival]

Don't hold your breath for a fix guys!

 

I provided Rockstar UK with my dxdiag and a whole bunch of screenshots. After a few generic responses from them (including advice to increase the draw distance - which did improve things but not much), I got this disappointing reply:

 

"The issue has been noted although we currently are not aware of any plans to alter this aspect of the engine.

 

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."

 

[vandeskava]

worst reply ever ... they listen to us and the only thing they hear is "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" we make tons of money STFU you customer....

[expiorer]

I don't think they are doing anything at all.

[AlexDeLargre]

FFS

[ExistHaunebu]

 

[JohnZS]

This issue still remains in Patch 1.0.3.0

What I have noticed though is that bikers and people in opentop cars are drawn fine.. and oddly enough if the cops are after you they are drawn correctly as well, just not if they are driving around and you do not have a wanted level.

It's kinda like the peds are not spawned in the vehicles until ridiculously close.

John

[mkey82]

What I have noticed though is that bikers and people in opentop cars are drawn fine.. and oddly enough if the cops are after you they are drawn correctly as well, just not if they are driving around and you do not have a wanted level.

I can confirm this, when the cops are following, you can properly snipe them .

[JohnZS]

What I have noticed though is that bikers and people in opentop cars are drawn fine.. and oddly enough if the cops are after you they are drawn correctly as well, just not if they are driving around and you do not have a wanted level.

I can confirm this, when the cops are following, you can properly snipe them .

It makes no sense though does it?

I mean if it were a "fixed FOV, or position, or LOD bug" then it wouldn't matter whether you were wanted or not?!?! It's almost like deliberate "bandwidth saving" code or something?

 

[t888]

What I have noticed though is that bikers and people in opentop cars are drawn fine.. and oddly enough if the cops are after you they are drawn correctly as well, just not if they are driving around and you do not have a wanted level.

I can confirm this, when the cops are following, you can properly snipe them .

It makes no sense though does it?

I mean if it were a "fixed FOV, or position, or LOD bug" then it wouldn't matter whether you were wanted or not?!?! It's almost like deliberate "bandwidth saving" code or something?

***********

*When I was satisfied I crouched down and sniped away! I took out a North Korean Soldier at over 1,800+ meters! (more *than a full mile! ) Just under the maximum effective range of the weapon!

*

*Here is the video capture: http://bochen360.blip.tv/file/1977466/

***********

 

I was watching the XIII show on NBC a few weeks ago and suddenly got the urge to play a little simulation/reenactment in the GTAIV universe / virtual world. In the movie XIII they had a elite sniper take out a high profile individual with a Barrett M107 .50 Caliber High Powered Sniper Rifle at over a mile away with one single shot!

 

I thought that was so cool so I wanted to try that out myself.. So I went online looking for GTAIV weapons and levels mods.. To my surprise I didn't find ANY .. there are no weapons mods or total conversions available for this game? What? I thought the console version came out April of 2008? Anyways, not to be deterred I found some forums and dug up a little "magic"-iv and proceeded to mode the sniper in the game to try and make its ballistics and specs as close to the real M107 as possible and I was eager to snipe innocent civilians in Liberty City from way up high on one of those lofty rooftops..

 

To my utter surprise and shock, I could not see anything or anyone from on top of a skyscraper! I have a pretty state of the art PC and I have everything set to high, even sacrificing a few frames here and there (nothing major) to get that extra little bit of eyecandy (hey I think its well worth it!) I look down and everything is like a colorless blanket of gray! Granted I could still see the streets and make out the patterns from down below.. but there were zero cars and zero pedestrians!

 

So I thought maybe if I got down a bit lower it would work.. Horribly.. no such luck! I kept finding lower and lower buildings to try and snipe from but each time, no cigar! It seems that in fact I found out empirically that from any altitude higher than a one story building I was not able to even SEE any cars, or people at all (much less shoot at them LOL)... It got so pathetic that I had to eventually just try to snipe from ground level right smack on the actual streets themselves!! Even still I found out that other than police and patrol vehicles I was NOT able to snipe any drivers more than 20ft away from my camera angle (where Niko is standing, own POV, etc) and this infuriated me to no end! To make matters worse I learned the hard way that even pedestrians out on the streets started "turning into a coat of gray" at around 50ft and disappeared on me altogether at more than 100ft out!

 

I know there is nothing wrong with my system or setup, so I keep asking myself what could possible Rockstar be thinking or what is going on in their minds when their developers make snipers in an open ended game in which unfortunately you can't "snipe" anyone at all, except maybe at close range or arms length away!! I did some further research online and found out that in fact what I just discovered was already well documented , even on this here exact forum!!

 

(Peds & Drivers in Cars have 30 feet draw distance! & all grayed out at 50meters!)

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426

 

It seems R* never fixed it, never patched it, they never even admitted it was a problem and a hindered to gameplay! So much for transparency and responsibility I thought!!! Oh well so much for that..

 

 

Disappointed but thwarted in my efforts of M107 sniper-ing reenactment I proceeded to try to find mods for the M107 for some other games out there.. I thought about the official America's Army game but then remembered Crysis has much better graphics and a physics engine to kill for..

 

So off I went and grabbed the M107 mod from here : http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=35243&hilight=M107

Then I had trouble finding the install disk, but remembered the demo works just fine so I grabbed the Crysis DEMO from Nvidia here: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_crysis_downloads.html

Then I used the free Crytek 2 Sandbox Engine Editor to tweak my island just the way I like it: doc.crymod.com/

 

When I was satisfied I crouched down and sniped away! I took out a North Korean Soldier at over 1,800+ meters! (more than a full mile! )Just under the maximum effective range of the weapon!

 

** Here is the video capture: http://bochen360.blip.tv/file/1977466/

 

--

 

So all this got me thinking... If I can snipe a soldier in Crysis at over a mile away.. and take him out cold using just one single shot... Why can't I snipe pedestrians in the streets of Liberty City of GTAIV at street level even when they are only 30ft away!?!?!

 

In the final analysis lets just do this one calculation:

 

Max range of effective snipering in Crysis with M107 sniper rifle is approx 1,800 meters which equates to about 5900 feet!!!

 

Max range of effective shooting/sniper in GTAIV with ANY weapon/sniper is approximately no more than 30ft...

 

So... therefore by the sheer/raw numbers Crysis WOW FACTOR (or at least Crysis Engine max shoot-able range) overpowers that of the GTAIV game/engine by a factor of nearly 200X TIMES!!!!! WHAT IN THE HECK IS GOING ON??!!????

 

 

 

And I did all this free, to think of it I didn't have to spend a penny, (the crysis demo and mod and editor are all free..) yet I spent over $1000 (xbox 360 version of gtaiv, the xbox360 itself which I got just for the game, then the PC version of the game and a videocard upgrade) and it got me NOWHERE... A world away I say.. A world away..

[binclintonusa]

 

I like. Can I get you to post that wallpaper please. I really like it.

 

 

pret auto

 

[failure13]

Guys, i'm pretty much sure that soltion ain't here, it is on limits.dat

http://gtaforums.com/topic/449250-limitsdat-what-is-it-for/

 

It is a file which literaly made for limiting engine (and it seems that it have higher priority over everything you write in visualSettings.dat, therefore sometimes we don't see any changes when increaing values)

 

For one single reason, this file is getting created each time you load the game, and sometimes even in the process, there are few hex values and some of them are different from pc to pc, i don't know how to interpretate them, but i must say that sometimes when i play ped in car ar normal (and not only them, there are a lot of trouble going on), but after some time, peds apears like 5-10 meters away, and what i found is each time it happens - this file changes values.

So there is some stupid auto-checking system that each time ruins everything, i guess we should understand which values stands for what, then code this file as we want, and restrict it as only for reading.

 

Well, actually if it's not even this particular file, then i'm still sure that there is that kind of file that i have desribed.

By experimenting i come to this conclusion:

1. I start game, playing, everything is pretty normal and fine

2. After some time during game (or after i reboot game) everything went to s***, and peds in cars, peds, cars, imposters, tree imposters etc (everything that refers to LOD) starting to appear very close.

3. Doesn't matter how much i load, reboot game or PC, change my settings, change visualSettings.dat - it stays the same from now on always (that means that there is somwewhere limiting file beeing written, that have higher priority than any settings that we know).

 

BUT, there is a way to reset such behaviour temporary (which means most likely to overwrite this file):

1. You should run the game, go to Options (without loading save), pass benchmark, close game.

2. Boot game, load save - now everything should be fine again.

 

That means that there is some auto hardware / software configuration checking system, that doesn't work correctly for some reason, and it write some file all the time on boot / during gaming itself.

Edited November 4, 2013 by failure13